Page 12 of Taming Her Bears

“Do we kill them?”

“No, no. Not right away. We need information, first.”

“But we will kill them.”

“We arrest them.” I couldn’t hold back the change any longer. Hair began popping out of the engorged muscles, my snout grew long, my teeth sharp and jagged. I shook with the power of eighteen hundred pounds. A guttural call rose from my throat, startling the small, wild creatures. Branches crackling behind me, I galloped through the woods as fast as my back legs could kick my front legs forward, chewing up the land in front of me with four-inch, sharper than steel claws. I had to reach the burn site before the slave traders had time to examine it and see that Natalia had not been alone, and that the helicopter team had survived. I needed to be there before they went back to their boats.

A bear isn’t the fastest land animal on earth, but at a good sprint, he can tear up some miles. I was starting to feel a little winded by the time I got a good whiff of the site. Bears are amblers. They can cover huge amounts of territory just roaming along, but they are seldom in a hurry. If you were pushing along a body as big as a freight engine, you wouldn’t be in a hurry, either.

I couldn’t see Lee on the other side, but I knew he was there. When I circled just right, I caught his scent.

I also caught another scent, and then another. Both human. I crept through the brush, my dark coat blending in with the shadows. Two men, both in dark, knit caps and leather jackets. They were carrying rifles but leaned against them casually as they examined the recent footsteps disturbing the site and wandering off into the forest. After a short argument, they turned toward the beach and pointed along the eastern shoreline.

It was now or never. I raced toward the beach ahead of them, then made a sharp U-turn, charging them directly from in front. They were too surprised to react quickly and took too long fumbling for their rifles. The instant the lead man had raised his weapon to his shoulder to take aim, he was bowled over by a giant ball of teeth, claws, and fur. His sidekick forgot he had a rifle at all. He dropped it, scrambled backward two feet, then bolted for the speedboat. I took off after him.

The bugger was fast, I have to hand him that. He had already fired up the engine and was headed out toward the bay when I caught up with him. Desperate, he grabbed a paddle and tried beating me on the head, which was pitiful. I’ve got the cranium of a brick wall. I roared and flipped the boat like it was a toy. He gasped and thrashed around in the icy water, panicking more with each passing second. I tried to rescue him. I grabbed at the back of his jacket with my teeth, thinking I would haul him to shore, but he tore his jacket loose and began swimming. I let him go about thirty yards, then pushed my front paw into the middle of his back. He spluttered, floundered like a fish with a hook in its mouth, then went under, face down. I could have brought him in, but I didn’t. I swam back to shore, while the body floated gently and lifelessly on the water.

Lee still had the fearless leader pinned down. He was slobbering over him, nudging the petrified man with his snout and making woofing sounds. “I arrested him,” he growled in bear language. It was impossible to speak human in bear form.

I roared into our victim’s face just to watch his eyes bulge and his face turn white in terror, then shapeshifted into human form right in front of him. His mouth gaped and he tried to cry out, but no sound came. I squatted beside him. “Where is Denisovich?” I asked.

He wet his lips and croaked, “I don’t know.” Lee dropped some of his weight down on his prisoner’s legs, causing him to moan. “Take the bear off me and I’ll tell you.”

Lee got up grudgingly, swatting at the slave trader’s face and leaving two light shred marks. As soon as he was free, the trader rolled over and tried to escape. I tackled him and straddled his chest. “Where is Denisovich?”

“On his way to Seattle right now. We’re recruiters. We stay on the mainland. We only came back to get rid of the girl.”

“There’s no ‘we’ anymore, just you. Where did Denisovich get the boat?”

“We bought it at a very good price.”

I made a fist and slammed it into his jaw. “Where did he get the cutter?”

“Sitka. We picked it up in Sitka.”

“Where is the captain?”

“He’s dead.”

I hit him again. “Who was the captain? Who was it?”

“Alan McCarthy. I didn’t kill him. I’m a recruiter. I don’t go out on the boats. It was Denisovich.”

“But you were willing to kill a defenseless girl.” The rage rumbled deep inside. Unable to hold back the change, I shifted back to bear form and slashed him again and again, the hot anger churning and boiling into my pads. The fury splattered in red hot blood. With his head rolled to one side, his body convulsed, then straightened.

“He’s dead,” growled Lee in bear language.

“Yeah.” Two dead slave traders, either mauled by humans or mauled by bears. Forensics could sort it out. I’d gotten what I came for. “Let’s go.”

It was nice to amble back to the cabin. Lee was a good-looking kid, but in bear form, he was magnificent. He would never get as large as a Kodiak brown, but his shoulders had a powerful girth, accented by a golden-tipped fur collar. He was sleek, with the plush velvet coat of youth and a jaw that was only beginning to widen. He would top twelve feet someday.

The crew had been getting impatient for our return and let out a cheer that was half-jest, half-genuine when we walked back out into the clearing in our human form, pretending we had just gone for a stroll. Once we had been welcomed aboard, however, the atmosphere grew serious. My team, along with Natalia and Commander Swensen, met in the captain’s cabin.

“Where to?” asked Pete.

I studied the navigation maps. “We drop the young lady off in Valdez, then we set a course for Sitka.”

Natalia responded with all the good grace and decorum I had come to expect of her. “Oh, hell no! You are not leaving me alone in Valdez. Josh, we don’t know who is on Denisovich’s payroll. If you take me to Valdez, I’m dead. You know it’s true.”

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